re: D day- 06 JUN 44

Lost my great-grandfather just over a month ago to cancer. He was on the first wave at Omaha. Never talked about it until a few days before he passed.

He told my dad that the only reason he was still alive is because he wasn't the first one off his landing craft, he was the last. He said the Germans were walking their bunker guns up and down their groups in a lateral manner, gunning down the men who had made it farthest up the beach.

One of the greatest men I ever knew. He was iron-willed until the second he passed. Had been fighting the cancer for over a year, and never received any form of treatment, to include painkillers.

The man was a testament to the fact that you can do any damn thing that you set your mind to. He had a story about filling a five gallon bucket full of "want-to", and how as long as you carried that "want-to" with you, nobody could stop you.

My dad took my young brothers down there to visit and wanted him to tell that story to them... He told my dad "Son, I don't believe they can even hold that bucket yet"!

Miss that man.